THE
MINERAL GAHNITE

Gahnite is one of the rarer members of the Spinel Group of minerals, an important group of oxides.
It is named after Swedish chemist L. G. Gahn, who discovered manganese.
Gahnite forms in some granitic pegmatites, zinc deposits and in skarns, a special type of contact metamorphic rock.

Gahnite produces crystals showing well formed octahedrons. The crystals may show a type of twinning
called the Spinel Twin Law.
It is common among members of the spinel
group and is made famous by it namesake member,
spinel.

This type of twinning produces a twin plane that is parallel
to one of the octahedral faces. The plane acts as a mirror plane and produces
a left and right side that are mirror images of each other. This may not
sound all that spectacular for a very symmetrical mineral like spinel which
is loaded with mirror planes. However this mirror plane is not parallel
to any of the others and lowers the outward symmetry of the crystal.
The crystal will now have a trigonal appearance with a flat triangular top and bottom.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:

Color is commonly green but also known to be blue, yellow, brown or gray.

Luster is vitreous.

Transparency: Crystals are generally just translucent to almost opaque, but some slightly transparent specimens are known.

Crystal System: Isometric; 4/m bar 3 2/m

Crystal Habits include the typical octahedron, but can be found
as dodecahedrons and cubes.
Octahedrons may be truncated by dodecahedral faces and commonly show striations parallel to the octahedron-dodecahedron boundary.
Twinning by the Spinel Twin Law
can produce trigonal appearing crystals with three reentrant angles on the sides of the crystal.